| The village was founded in 1846 by Swedish immigrants affiliated with the Pietist movement, led by Erik Jansson, seeking a haven from religious persecution. Villagers lived as a collective religious colony in 1846-1861; as the Civil War broke out, the congregation dissolved. The Janssonist emigrants were the first significant group of men and women to move from Sweden to the United States. Letters home from Janssonists to their friends and family, telling of the fertile agricultural land in the interior of North America, stimulated substantial migration for several decades and the formation of the Swedish-American ethnic community of the American Midwest. Reference |  |